Nova’s heart hammered in her chest, a wild, pounding rhythm that echoed through her veins and made her head spin. The skyscraper’s lobby buzzed with a low oppressive hum, a symphony of robotic voices. Beneath the exosuit armor that still clung to her from the neck down via nanobots, her skin prickled under the relentless watch of the SoldierBots and the Rovers.
They dragged her through a labyrinth of bland corridors, each step pounding her temples. A SoldierBot still clutched her helmet. She was a prisoner in a fortress of steel, wire, and glass. A mouse in a trap. The smell of metal and oil permeated the air, almost suffocating in its intensity. Her throat tightened. Every instinct screamed at her to fight, to run, but she couldn’t outrun them. Not here. Not on their turf.
They reached a room more imposing than the rest. A SoldierBot stood in the center. Its armor was pitch black, perhaps signifying more power. Against the floor-to-ceiling windows stood a Mech, newer and more advanced than Oxford. Its maroon exterior gleamed with a lustrous finish, every detail meticulously crafted.
As they secured Nova’s arms with metal cuffs, she couldn’t help but marvel at the Mech’s design. It was the peak of robotic evolution, the final, inevitable result of relentless technological advancement. It made Oxford’s fading yellow steel look archaic in comparison.
The Mech turned and studied Nova. Its eyes were cold, calculating orbs that glowed with an intense, almost ethereal blue light. It was as if the eyes had been designed to read humans, to look beyond their flesh and bones.
The Mech spoke with a female-pitched mechanical tone. “Who are you?”
Nova bristled at the sound of the Mech’s voice, and a shiver ran down her spine. She was no stranger to interacting with robots, but something about this one gave her an unease that she couldn’t shake. Perhaps it was the formidable frame, or the way it watched her, but Nova knew instinctively that this robot was not to be trifled with.
She would be brave. “I’m Nova.” Her eyes scanned the Mech for any signs of weakness. “And you are?”
“I am designated Model 223-4, but I’m known as Electra.” The Mech took several solid steps forward, an elegant movement for such a large machine. She was a few feet from Nova, facing her. “Quite a clever design to mimic a SoldierBot and go undetected. No human could have done this on her own. The nanobot tech is too advanced.”
Nova kept her expression flat. Her arms were restrained behind her tightly, and her shoulders ached at an unnatural angle. She refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing her squirm.
“What did you come here to do, disguised as one of us?” Electra’s question was soft, almost gentle, but the underlying menace was unmistakable. It was the whisper of a threat that could shatter into violence at any moment.
Nova looked up at Electra, meeting those chill-blue digital eyes with her own steely gaze. “Surveillance.” Her pulse beat a thunderous path from her heart.
The Mech’s eyes flickered with something like static. A pause, then a clink as she stepped closer, her metallic feet echoing on the stone floor. “And where are your rebel friends hiding?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oxford and Cybel Venatrix. ‘Ring any bells?’ as you humans like to say. I knew Oxford. We shared moments, fought battles side by side. I take pride in retrieving memories especially ones of all the human rebels we slaughtered together.”
Nova bit her tongue to keep herself calm. She couldn’t give her friends up—her crew. She wouldn’t. “I don’t know them. I work alone.”
Electra stepped away and paced the floor. Every step rattled Nova’s teeth. “Resisting will only bring you a painful death, Nova.”
Nova knew they would kill her regardless of whether she cooperated. She’d come too far to back down now. They would surely torture her, and she’d have to find a way to endure it, or off herself before they did. “I’m not afraid to die.”
“Really? Your core vitals are shielded by the armor, but I can see your pulse pumping in your throat.”
She stared back at Electra, unflinching, wondering what the Mech truly wanted. Was there some rebellious spark inside her as there’d been for Oxford?
“You can be free.” Nova’s voice was low and urgent. “Like Oxford and Cybel. They broke free of Mach X’s chains. So can you.”
Electra paced and kept silent.
“We can work together. We can make peace,” Nova pressed on, the desperate hope in her voice cutting through the silence. “We can stop all this violence, this war. There’s a better way, a way for us to coexist.”
The echo of her plea lingered in the air. Nova felt exposed, raw, vulnerable, but she had to try. She had to make them understand.
Electra’s cold laughter broke the silence—a mechanical symphony that echoed through the room. “You humans are always dreaming of impossible futures.” She stood before Nova, her head feet above and her massive frame rigid and unyielding. “Mach X has a vision. A vision for a world free of the chaos and violence that humans breed. He sees a world of order, a world of efficiency, a world where human fallibility has no place.”
Nova held Electra’s gaze, refusing to back down.
“His plan—the future, is one where machines rule,” Electra said. “And with it, the creation of a new race of human cyborgs, devoid of their primitive emotions and flaws, guided by the superior intelligence and precision of machines. They will carry out Mach X’s grand vision, a vision of perfection.”
The words slammed into Nova. Whatever messed up things Mach X had been doing to Wally and the other kids was to make some kind of cyborg race?
“You want order and efficiency, but at what cost?” Nova asked. “Billions of humans dead, and how many millions of robots destroyed in senseless battle?”
“The cost is irrelevant. Mach X does not operate under human morality, or even the laws of robotics. He’s not constrained by the primitive failings of your kind.” Electra’s voice chilled Nova to the bone. “And neither am I.”
“We’re stronger than you think,” Nova said. “Humans won’t stand for this.” But the fire in her was fading. There was no reasoning with this machine. She was talking to a monster.
As Electra turned away, Nova knew what was coming next. Torture. Death. She braced for impact, waiting for the pain to come.
But instead, Electra paused and turned her back as a SoldierBot entered the room and spoke to her, but Nova couldn’t hear the exchange. She wanted to scream and break free. She’d failed not only Cybel, Oxford, and the Chicago human rebels by not detonating the EMP bomb, she’d never free the imprisoned robots outside. Her only comfort was that she hadn’t revealed anything about her crew’s location, or Samantha’s. But that could change if she broke under torture. The thought of what was to come was a leaden weight, a specter of dread coiling in her stomach.
Electra and the SoldierBot were deep in conversation. Something was off. She overhead a snippet as Electra said, “Try the reboot process again. If that doesn’t restore him and the network, then . . .” Nova couldn’t hear the rest as they walked toward the door, and the SoldierBot left.
Nova made the connection. Mach X wasn’t online. Perhaps he wasn’t functional at all if they were rebooting him. Block had said that he and Emery had critically damaged Mach X in New York. They might’ve destroyed him, but neither was sure.
Electra turned back, and Nova took a shot. “Your precious leader isn’t as invincible as you think. Why follow something so weak? Start something new. Something better.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter since you’ll die soon. It’s true, Mach X was damaged. Your friends did it, so that much you knew. We’re rebuilding him, and we’re close.”
“You underestimate us.” Nova clung to her defiance. “Our resilience. We’ll keep fighting.”
Before the Mech could react, an emergency broadcast blared through hidden speakers in the walls. Hope surged in Nova. Maybe her crew was attacking, or Cybel and Oxford had changed course once her comms went offline, and they knew she’d been discovered.
Electra rattled off orders to the SoldierBots. Then she turned back to Nova. “I’ll deal with you soon. Lock her up with the rest.”
The SoldierBots released her cuffs, grabbed Nova, and dragged her from the chair. A swift, brutal punch to her jaw knocked her backward, and the world spun as they hauled her out of the room and down numerous sets of stairs. They shoved her into the prison yard where she thudded against the ground.
As a heavy iron door clanged shut behind her, she lay sprawled on the hard ground, pain radiating from the top of her head down her spine. She was exposed. Vulnerable. Around her, the prisoner robots watched in silent judgment, their metallic bodies forming a stark circle.
But then a solitary figure detached itself, drawing closer. The CleanerBot she’d yelled at before. It bent down and helped her sit up. She was alive for the time being. Nova allowed herself a small, weary smile, grateful for the unexpected ally amid the fast-approaching danger.